Gossamer Wind
by miss lizz
Summary: Something invades headquarters. Warning: contains excessive violence. Please R/R.
1. Default Chapter

Gossamer Wind

Ch 1: Prey Birds

rating: R for violence and massive blood loss.

disclaimer: The MiB do not belong to me.  As far as I know anyway.

***********

            No one knew how they came to be or why they ended up inside headquarters.  That didn't matter at the moment so much as the fact that they were here and on a rampage.  Rampage may be too tame a description, feeding frenzy or massacre may be more to the point.  MiB was taken totally by surprise, several agents and others had already been killed, many more were fatally injured.  

            Aliens they could handle, the creatures running amok in headquarters were of Earth origin.  Ancient Earth, yes, but Earth nonetheless, and MiB was near clueless on how to deal with it.  

            Kay cursed under his breath and closed his communicator.  He'd been trying to raise headquarters for the past fifteen minutes.  He had a feeling something bad was happening, and he and Jay were stuck here until their current situation was resolved.  The Eldorian was being decidedly uncooperative at the moment.

            Elle coughed as she struggled to remain on her feet and moving.  Blood bubbled out of her mouth, dripping down her chin and throat, she felt so lightheaded and sick.  At her waist, she felt X's grip tighten and her vision swam.  A familiar scream cut the air and X immediately tensed, weapon ready.  Both of them were torn and bloody from the ambush they had been caught in, the extent of their injuries largely unknown but frighteningly felt.  Elle held back her tears and bitter bile at the memory of Agent E being torn apart before their eyes.  She wanted her vision unclouded if this turned out to her and X's last stand.  She tried to stand more on her own and raise her weapon ignoring the waves of pain this caused and the droplets of blood spattering along the ground.

            Those animals would kill them if another ambush were set.  Elle swallowed sickly, they were going to die down here in the dark sublevels of headquarters.  She did not want to die.  She was afraid.  It was getting harder to breath through the blood that was continually dripping out of her nose and mouth.  And her ribs were screaming in agony with every move she made.  And X… oh God, X, he was just as badly injured as she was but apparently had a different idea about their fate than she did.  He tapped in a sequence on a number pad and a metal door slid open.  Dragging a barely conscious and badly bleeding Elle inside, he set her down and sealed the door as best he could.  Seconds afterwards a heavy thud jarred the door but nothing could break in, at the moment.

            For now safe, the green-skinned agent painfully sagged against the wall, resting for just a few seconds.  A wave of dizziness passed over him.  _Must be blood loss…_ he thought, looking down at the rapidly spreading blue stain on the front of his shirt, what was left of it anyway.  Pushing himself off from the wall, he staggered over to Elle where the tall Jee'Dangian collapsed to his knees beside her.

            "You should probably bandage those cuts…" she mumbled before unconsciousness caught her in its warm embrace.

            X stared at her a moment trying to think of something to help her.  He hurriedly stripped off the remaining shreds of shirt and jacket clinging to his body.  His human suit was unsalvageable, which he was rather glad about, it meant he no longer had to wear it, which left him bare from the waist up.  Tearing the fabric into strips, X hesitated a split second about what he was going to have to do when he figured she'd probably forgive him considering the circumstances.  Eventually.  He made up his mind then and began to unclothe his partner.  Once he'd unbuttoned and pulled her torn blouse off he discovered she had on an undershirt and a sheer article of clothing he had seen before but was unsure as to the purpose.  He had seen Jay looking at a catalogue of them and obviously only women wore them, but what were they?  Mentally he shrugged and bent to unclasp the odd undergarment.

            Kay swore to himself, it had been close to 45 minutes of nothing but static coming from MiB headquarters. He and Jay had apprehended the Eldorian and were now speeding towards base.  Their prisoner sat sullenly in the rear often making cynical and snide remarks.  The agents ignored him.

            Something had happened.  Something bad.  Best-case scenario was as mundane and harmless as a brown out, worst case… Kay did not want to think of worse case.

            The garage was eerily empty and dark.  It appeared that much of the lighting fixtures were broken.  Pools of some liquid, coloured black from lack of illumination, were spilt in large and small puddles all over the ground.  Crouching next to one of many, Kay tentatively dipped a fingertip into the mystery liquid.  It was cold and thick as molasses.  It was human blood.  He felt himself pale; what was inside headquarters?  And how many agents were left?

            "Come on, Slick," Kay stood and opened the LTD's trunk, taking out icers and more-powerful-than-normal carbonizers, "Here."

            A bewildered Jay followed him closely, "Uh, Kay… what's goin' on?"

            Grim silence was his only answer.

            Her eyes fluttered open painfully.  Where was she?  She was lying on cold metal with some kind of fabric covering her.  Her vision blurred out like she was gazing through tears.  Blinking rapidly, she realized she was.  Pain felt like it had moved in to her body and made itself at home.  God, she hurt.

            "Elle?" X stirred from his sitting position beside her, concern seemed etched in his face.  Something she had not expected.

            The blonde agent groaned, at the moment all she could do.  Weakness and fatigue overwhelmed her senses again as she slipped into a fitful sleep.

            Later, it didn't feel like later though she was unsure of how much later it was but it must have been awhile, Elle cracked her eyes open to darkness.  Were they still in the room X had locked them in?  Or had he moved them?  Or was she dead and floating in a void?  No, she wasn't dead; she hurt too much to be dead.

            "X?" Why did her voice sound so gravelly?

            "Elle?  How do you feel?"

            "Awful.  How 'bout you?"

            She thought she felt a smile, "I'll live."

            "What happened to the lights?"

            "I don't know," he paused for a moment, they were so close she could feel his breath, warm and damp, on her face, he smelled like blood.  "They're still out there," he said in a hushed tone, "I can hear their talons on the flooring."

            "I guess those big kaff big ears are good for something," she went into a coughing fit and couldn't speak for a long while, she was fairly expecting X to make some insulting comment about her being a weak little human.  Right now she felt it.  Instead, a pair of strong arms encircled her, lending their support.  She could barely get herself to think of that oddity because she felt something wet splatter onto her hand.

End Ch 1

Well, what do ya'll think?  Please tell me and keep it constructive if you so kindly would.  More chapters are on their way.  Thank you for taking the time to read my literary attempts.

      Miss Lizz ^_^


	2. 2

Gossamer Wind

Ch. 2: Haze

Author: Miss Lizz 

Rating: R for violence, blood loss, death, and all that good stuff.

Disclaimer: I wish.

            Zed, the twins, and some other agents, slashed and bloody but still very much alive, were struggling in vain to hold off a pack of the vicious four-foot tall creatures.  It was still unknown how the toothy critters had appeared in present day MiB headquarters.  Fully 90% if agents were unaccounted for or possibly dead.  One of the avian reptiles lunged at Zed, knocking the big man to the ground and raking its foot-long, scimitar-like talons across his arm and chest.  He was nearly eviscerated before the cavalry came blasting in with icers and carbonizers drawn.  

            Sensing that their prey had just been given a boost in confidence and resurgence in fight, most of the pack retreated down hallways while those braver ones, or foolhardy depending on point of view, shifted their ravenous attentions to the fresh meat.  They launched themselves at the newcomers with squeals and cries of attack.  It was their undoing.  

            With precision borne of patience and practice, the beast were either flash-frozen or french-fried by weaponry even their speed could not save them from for long.  There was a sigh of relief, an indrawn breath of pain and a general sense that they just may survive this catastrophe thanks to the half-dozen or so agents who had been out in the field.  They came in just the nick of time in a blaze of glory.  Grim-faced soldiers lending hope and fresh weaponry to the trapped and near massacred inside force.  Blood loss was great for the survivors; most of the blood was now congealing on the floors and walls and oozing out of gashes and holes where limbs once attached.  It was a horrific sight, and the smell… The rich, coppery, sickly sweet tang of blood, both human and not, was so heavy in the air it was making many ill.  One of the victims who had two of his arms ripped out of their sockets went into anaphylactic shock.  He gave a panicked shriek and died soon after a tourniquet was applied to quell the white blood gushing out of the gaping wounds.  He was one of many.

            The dead creatures were being stared at like demons from the blackest pit of hell.  There was no remorse over those deaths.

            A look of strange mystery on their brows, Kay and Sigma kneel beside one of the smoking animals.

            "Ever seen anything like this before?" the gray-eyed Chinese woman asked.

            "Not outside of fairy tales."

            She arched a slender black eyebrow, "You've read fairy tales?" he glanced at her from narrowed eyes, "But you're right," she continued, ignoring his look, "They _do_ look like, I don't know, like feathered dragons or something.  Yet, these aren't really feathers, more like a point between feathers and scales like an evolutionary crossroad.  But the wings are like those of a bat.  And these ridges along the back, the teeth and curved talons for rending meat, the arms that are quite separate from the wings and that long, prehensile, spear tip-like tail are indicative of a reptile or dinosaur or—or an actual dragon." She finished her muttering with wide eyes.  How was that possible?  Dragons disappeared from the Earth a couple of centuries ago.

            Kay simply nodded, not seeming too surprised.  His calm was unnerving at times.

            "Since you've seemed to have solved the mystery of what these things might be, how 'bout getting them contained before they get out into the city," Zed growled from where he was motioning a younger agent to leave him alone, there were more seriously injured than he, "Everyone who can, grab an icer and go in teams down each and every corridor, use your own judgment for survivors.  Let's clean this place up, people."

            They went in teams of four, inching down hallway after hallway, freezing any of the beasts that crossed their paths even having to freeze some of the survivors to make sure they stayed that way.  The farther and deeper into the complex the agents journeyed, the less bodies were uncovered but there were more and more strange burns and larger claw marks everywhere.  In places the very walls themselves, strong and sturdy all, had been torn down or ripped into or even melted.  Melted.  The walls could have survived atmospheric re-entry if need be and they had been melted.

            What danger could this portend?

end Ch. 2

This one was really short, huh?  As in all, please tell me what you think.  Thank you.  

Miss Lizz ^_^


	3. 3

Gossamer Wind

Ch. 3: Hopes Dashed

Author: Miss Lizz

Rating: R for the same stuff as the chapters before.

Disclaimer: You need to ask?  However, any unheard of characters are beings of my imagination.

            Ayin led his small group down another dark corridor, the generator had been destroyed and apparently the back up as well for all power had died over an hour before.  The inky blackness swallowed everything, multiplied sounds, and multiplied the danger tenfold; a thousand fold if the beasts were truly getting larger and breathing fire.  It did help his peace of mind to know his team was composed of seasoned veterans; too bad they did not always act it.

            When one of his teammates whispered, "Did any of you hear that?" The blonde Norseman swung around to face the questioner.  It was the petite, flaxen haired B, her blue eyes wide and darting about to follow her flashlight beam.

            "Hear what?" asked Rho, who shone her flashlight back the way they'd come.  Sure enough, thuds and clicking were echoing slowly but definitely down the corridor.  But it was difficult to tell from whence it came: behind or before or both?  It was nerve-wracking.

            "It's not behind us, it can't be behind us, if it was behind us, we would have seen it before.  Wouldn't we?" H (he was believed to be slightly neurotic) was beginning to talk faster and faster, lower and more hoarse as the clicking drew nearer.  At the rate he was going, he would hyperventilate before anything got to them.  His mumbling finally became too fast and too low for anyone to make sense of.

            Several tense seconds that felt like hours passed by silently save for H's hushed mumbling, when the clicking and thumping faded away to nothing.  H nearly passed out.  The other three relaxed and grinned at each other for acting like frightened rookies.  The death-grips on their weaponry loosened slightly but were kept at the ready, just in case.

            They continued on their way, keeping a closer watch on their rear and a keener ear to the wind.  They had been lucky so far, none too many dragons had crossed their path but no survivors of any kind were found, even the rats they had come upon had been eaten.

            For several minutes now she had been hacking and coughing up blood.  This time the fit had left an already weak Elle totally exhausted.  With blood dribbling down her chin and sweat dampening her hair, she lay wheezing on the floor with her head on X's broad chest.  She was cradled against him as she had been for the last—it felt like hours—his very well muscled arms wrapped loosely around her.  He had been very gentle thus far, showing a concern for her well being that amazed her, even wiping her brow and the blood from her lips.  

            _This is awfully sweet of him,_ she thought as he adjusted them both into more comfortable positions.  _I didn't know he had a gentle bone in his body.  Must've hit his head or some—waitaminute!_

            "X, where're my clothes?"

            "Um…"

            "X!!"

            He sighed slightly, "I had to.  It was either that or let you bleed to death!" his voice softened, "No matter how much we may fight I wouldn't want that."

            "Oh."  Her face grew hot.  He only did what he had to, what she would have done in his place, and here she was getting mad at him.  She felt so contrite.  He probably didn't even notice her body except in disgust or worry over her injuries.

            "Can I ask you a question?"

            _Uh…_ "Sure."  _Why not?  It's not like anyone can overhear us._

            "The last thing you were wearing, underneath the blouse and undershirt, what exactly was it?"

            The blush that was already on her cheeks grew brighter and spread to the rest or her body.  Thank God the lights were out.  "Oh Lord…" she croaked in a small voice.  "Um… it's a bra.  They're for…support.  Yeah." _Why does he do this to me?  I'm cursed, aren't I?  The fates are laughing their heads off right now, I know it._

            "That's a different name that what Agent Jay used.  He called them… lawn-ger-ray?" He said the name slowly trying to pronounce the odd word correctly.  "Only he never told me they were so tricky to unclasp, it took me five minutes just to figure it out.  Do—Are you going to be okay?  What's wrong?"

            Elle was sputtering and coughing, if her blush wasn't covering her body before, it sure as anything was now, this was the oddest place to be having one of the oddest conversations she had ever had with her partner.  If they lived through this, she would kill Jay.  Who knew what else he may have shown X.  That weasel.  Was everyone against her?

            "Was it something I said?"

            A great scrabble of claws and the screaming cries of those beasts outside resounded through the small storeroom, cutting off any remark she could have made.  The Jee'Dangian had leaned her against the wall and was on his feet before Elle was yet able to make her stiff body painfully respond to her commands.  How could he move so fast?  He was nearly as injured as she was.  Another cry cut the air this time followed immediately by a monstrous roar from something very big.

            "Where's my icer?"

            X's voice was icy calm and had a dangerous edge to it, "Foot 'n' a half from your right knee."  As he said this, a thunderous crash shook the door, then silence.  A roaring sound, like wind through a tunnel, kicked up and flames erupted from the bottom seal of the door.  It grew red hot, cresting into a brightly glowing orange.  The heat in the room grew unbearable.  It was like witnessing a small volcano; the metal was beginning to run down to the flooring that also seemed to be melting.  They could see now but that was barely worth registering.

            He shielded Elle with his body when the door exploded, hurling bits of heated metal and fire through the air.  He grunted in pain as burns slashed across his broad back but turned back to face the door quickly, his weapon leveled at whatever may come in.  And he had to look up.  The flickering light of the fires threw grotesque shadows over the spiked body of a colossal beast.  Its heavy-clawed feet denting the very floor it walked on.  No clicking scrabbles from this brute, dull thundering marked its passage.  How did this nightmare with wings manage to fit through the halls?

            It growled, opening its great maw to reveal jagged, yellow teeth nearly a foot long that glittered with spittle in the firelight.  X pushed his little human out of the way when the monster swung its awful head, mouth gaping, at them in a wide arc.  He fired his carbonizer but only managed to enrage the beast.  With another swing of its gnarled cranium and a swipe of its scimitar claws, X was pinned to the wall.  Electric blue blood burst forth from his mouth and nose, his eyes widened and his gun slipped from suddenly limp fingers.

            Elle scrambled to her feet as best she could, her partner's strangled cry echoing in her mind like a gunshot.  When she fired her icer, it had much the same effect as the carbonizer: the creature became enraged.  Though a patch of frozen feather-scales appeared on its shoulder.  With a roar of pain, it swung its head to face her, allowing X to drop boneless to the ground.  It glared balefully at her, opened its toothy jaws, to roar or erupt flames, Elle didn't wait to find out.  The blonde woman fired again, sending the blast of super-cooled energy down its cavernous gullet.

            It worked.  The thing became a frozen lawn ornament. 

            Elle fought back a sob, both out of relief and out of utter devastation.  X was laying facedown in a pool of blood.  Was he breathing?  Was he even alive still?  She dropped to her knees beside him, biting back a yelp at the agony that caused.  She had to try, after everything he did for her there was no way she couldn't.  He was right earlier, no matter how often they fought, or how vicious those arguments, she didn't want to lose him.  She was becoming fond of him.  And his faults.

            He was breathing but it was rough and his pulse was steady and strong.  His ribs were snapped; at least three of the lower ones and the burns on his back were oozing blood.  Strange, burns shouldn't bleed.  They should have been cauterized instantly.  She had to move him, it might prove fatal if one of those broken ribs punctured a vital organ but he would drown in his own blood in the position he was in now.  Or he might bleed to death first.  She couldn't let that happen.  On his side should be safe enough, she hoped.

            _Don't let him die._

_            Don't leave me, X, please._

End Ch 3

Lots of blood loss in this one, huh?  The next chapter is no better, I'm warnin' ya now.  

Well, what did ya'll think of this'un?  Review, review.  Thank you.

Miss Lizz ^_^


	4. 4

Gossamer Wind

Ch. 4: Finding

Author: Miss Lizz

Rating: Pg-13 for nothing really happening.

Disclaimer: Only the new agents are mine 

            There was a trail of spattered blood that they had more or less been following for the past several minutes. It might lead to survivors because it was not made by someone being dragged, rather they were stumbling on their own, at least two survivors, one human, one most definitely alien.  With any luck, the two would be found still alive.

            Up ahead, at the very edge of where their light beams faded to nothing, something glimmered in the darkness.  Something large that took over most of the hall.

            "What is that?  An ice wall?" Rho asked, shining her light closer to the mass of refracting material.  It was without a doubt ice, and it was encasing something huge and organic.

            "It's a―" Ayin began but cut himself off when he did realize what it was.  How could they have gotten so large?

            "O god o god o god o god…"

            B ignored H's muttering and peered over the ice sculpture as best she could and yelled, "Is there anyone in there?"

            A familiar voice answered, "Yeah."

            "Elle?  Are you okay?"

            There was silence for a nerve-wracking amount of time before Elle spoke again.  "Not really.  X is unconscious and his breathing isn't too good.  And we've both lost a lot of blood.  What's happening?"

            _How can she be so calm about this?_  Rho thought as Ayin took over the conversation from there.

            "Zed's sent teams through each hallway to contain the dragons and―"

            "Dragons?" Came the confused voice in the room.

            "Yes― and to find any survivors.  So far, you're the only ones we've found," as an aside to his team, "How far away are we from the labs?"

            "One is just down this corridor a ways, I think."

            "Great.  Hey Elle, can you walk?  And can X be moved?"

            "Um… yes to the first and depends on how far you're going to move him to the second.  Why please?"

            "One of the labs isn't too far from here."

            "Uh, Ayin," H began. "There's a problem with this," everyone was looking at him now, "How are we supposed to get them out the room?"

            "Good question," came the slightly amused tone from beyond the frozen dragon.

End ch. 4

Not long but it wasn't meant to be.  What do you think of the story so far?  Please send some sort of review.  Thank you.


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